Cliche
by Jenie
Summary: Hermione decides to take a walk during the night and learns something... **Response to a challenge**


Disclaimer: They don't belong to me.  
  
A/N: This is a challenge fic. Just for those of you who are really harsh when it comes to critiques. (clears throat A-HEM! grumble grumble, stupid beta reader… grin)  
  
It was after midnight when Hermione Granger snuck down the stairs and out the portrait hole. Once upon a time, she wouldn't have even considered doing something so irrational, especially since she was made a prefect her fifth year. After all, she was to be an example to the younger students.  
  
Recently though, Hermione had begun to feel like she was missing something. She had begun taking walks around the lake late at night earlier this year. Harry had given her an invisibility cloak for Christmas, not wanting her to get caught wandering the halls so late at night. He had shrugged off her walks as Hermione stressing over the NEWTs, even though they were still over a year away.  
  
However, Hermione's walks were not about the NEWTs or school at all. No, they were spent on much more common themes, themes that no one ever attributed to Hermione Granger, resident brain. She spent her walks contemplating love. Yes, love. Hermione had fallen in love.  
  
But her choice of love was unfortunate. Draco Malfoy. No self-respecting Gryffindor would admit to falling in love with the self-appointed 'Slytherin King'. Oh, every girl in Gryffindor admitted that Draco was sexy, and most would date him. But fall in love with him? How could one fall in love with a person who aspires to have no emotions? Yet somehow, Hermione had managed to do just that.  
  
To make it worse, she knew he'd never love her in return. She stopped by the edge of the lake and drew back the hood of her invisibility cloak so she could examine herself. Her eyes looked critically at herself. A hand reached up and twirled a lock of her dirty brown hair as she concentrated. Her hair was still frizzy, though not as much as when she was younger. It curled more now, which helped fight the frizz, but was still dirty brown – not a deep chestnut or a little brown, just dirty brown. Her eyes traced her face, which was a little too thin, to her lips, which were a little too big. Sure, her teeth were the same size now, but no one noticed her smile. Her skin wasn't as tan as Lavender's or Parvati's because she spent all her extra time in the library, instead of outside tanning. Her eyes were her best feature, large and sparkly. They were the color of cinnamon. She sighed again. No, Draco'd never love someone who looked like me.  
  
She was drawn out of her thoughts by the snap of a twig. Someone was coming. She quickly flipped her hood back up, and snuck to the safety of a willow tree. However, whoever it was seemed intent on sitting underneath the same willow tree Hermione had taken refuge under. Hermione tried to stay calm. After all, she was still underneath the invisibility cloak. The intruder still couldn't see her. However, she still waited with baited breath, wondering who could be up at this time of night.  
  
To her shock, the person who appeared under the willow's branches was none other than Draco Malfoy himself. Too shocked to move, Hermione watched as Draco sat against the trunk.  
  
"What am I to do?" Draco wondered out loud. "I've tried to just forget about her. It's obvious that she'd never feel the same way about me. But I wish…" He paused here for a second, then sighed. "I'd rather be a fool with a broken heart than be someone who could never have a part of her…"  
  
Hermione began to back away slowly. Her eyes began to water. He loved someone else. Her heart began to shatter into a million pieces. Her mother once told her the worst thing in the world was to never love someone. This was ten million times worst – standing here next to Draco and knowing that she could never have him, never have him love her.  
  
Unfortunately for Hermione, she wasn't watching where she was going, and tripped over a rock. As she fell, she cried out.  
  
Draco's head snapped up as he heard someone cry. However, there was no one in sight. "Who's there?" He demanded. "Potter, show yourself."  
  
Hermione cursed herself for making noise, but knew she couldn't let Harry take the wrap for her mistake. So, gathering her courage, she threw off her invisibility cloak.  
  
Draco's eyes grew wide as he looked down at her. "Her – Granger. What are you doing here? How much did you overhear?"  
  
She stood slowly. "Enough, Draco, to wish whoever it is you fancy happiness." She looked into his eyes, determined to be strong, to be proud, and not make a fool out of herself by telling him how she wished it were her instead.  
  
"So, you didn't hear her name?"  
  
"No, Draco. Now, if you'd excuse me, I need to go…" She turned around, trying to leave as gracefully as possible.  
  
"Who do you fancy?"  
  
She turned back around. "Why should I tell you that? So you can mock me? So you can go tease him about being loved by a mudblood?"  
  
"I'll tell you mine if you tell me yours."  
  
"No thank you, Draco. Good night." She walked away quickly, trying to hold her tears in and cursing herself under her breath. Why did she need to be so mean? Draco said something that she didn't quite hear, so she turned back yet again. He was studying the ground by his foot intently. "What did you say?" she asked.  
  
"I said her name is Hermione." He looked up slowly, shyly even.  
  
Hermione stood in shock for a moment, then ran back to him and hugged him to her. She whispered in his ear, "His name is Draco." Quickly, before she lost her nerve, she kissed him on the cheek. Blushing bright red, she raced back indoors, not noticing the bemused expression on Draco's face as she left him standing there.  
  
~*~  
  
Hermione wasn't sure what to expect at their next meeting. Would he smile at her? Hold her hand? What would he do?  
  
She never even considered that he'd act like the 'Slytherin King'. However, that was exactly how he acted. Hard, cruel and evil. He teased Ron about being poor, Harry about being an orphan and called Hermione a mudblood. It was too much for her, and she spent most of the rest of the day crying in Myrtle's bathroom.  
  
~*~  
  
She went for a walk again that night, supposedly to clear her mind of all thoughts about Draco. However, she secretly hoped she'd run into him again at their willow. She had to laugh at herself. They spent one night under the willow and it became theirs?  
  
Yet her secret hopes were rewarded as she approached the willow. Draco was sitting there, underneath the branches. He looked up as she approached, and smiled. He motioned for her to sit by him, but she shook her head.  
  
"Why were you so mean to me today?" She asked.  
  
His eyes clouded. "Do you want them to know about us?"  
  
"Why shouldn't they? It's not like they don't know about Ron and Lavender dating, or Harry and Ginny, or any other couple in the school. Why should we be any different?"  
  
"We can't be together, you know that," Draco said, looking at Hermione with almost pleading eyes. "It's forbidden."  
  
Hermione shook her head. "This isn't forbidden. My dating Snape, or Lupin, or heaven forbid, Professor Dumbledore is forbidden," she said, anger and hurt lacing her words. "This is only forbidden in your rather small, shallow mind. I thought you had changed."  
  
"I have changed," Draco said.  
  
"Apparently not if you think that the mere fact that we are in different houses makes this forbidden," Hermione snapped.  
  
Draco's eyes flashed in anger. "It's not just that, and you know it, Hermione. There's the fact that for five years we were bitter enemies; the fact that your parents hate me, and mine hate you; the fact that you could lose your closest friends just because of me… Hermione, can't you see that this is so much more than which house we're in? It's about our entire lives. Hermione, are you even listening to me?"  
  
Hermione was just standing there, eyes glazed over. Draco moved closer to her, suddenly concerned about her. He stood as close as he dared without touching her. "Hermione? Say something, love, say anything, just let me know you're alive." He whispered. "Please."  
  
"Say it again." She said, closing her eyes.  
  
"Say what again?" Draco asked, confused.  
  
Her eyes fluttered open and she stared into the depths of the gray eyes in front of her. "My name." She whispered.  
  
Realization dawned in his eyes. "Hermione."  
  
Teary brown eyes and soft gray eyes stared into each other for what seemed like forever. And then there was no words needed, their lips crashing together, the emotions that had been held in check for so long bursting out of them to create an energy that neither of them had ever felt before.  
  
  
  
A/N: As always, please review! And if you like this story, check out my other ones. Also, go check out enoimreH's work. 


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